A Realist Theory of Science Roy Bhaskar

Introduction x
Realism, 4 have been commissioned to write to a number of Bhaskar’s
subsequent works will also show). 5
Systems—though much out of favour these days, in which
characteristically the enormous complexity of the world is
acknowledged, and in which, it is claimed, we can only ever get
epistemological purchase on some aspects of it (if that)—are like
ontologies (which they sometimes embrace): if philosophers do not
develop one explicitly, their work will implicitly or tacitly secrete
one. Such an implicit system will, moreover, usually be highly
confused, precisely because it has not been thought through
comprehensively and as such will unwittingly incorporate elements of
the compromise formations 6 that define the intellectual horizons into
which we are all ‘thrown’. Where ‘PMR’ stands for ‘the philosophy
of meta-Reality’, ‘TDCR’ for ‘transcendental dialectical critical
realism’, ‘DCR’ for ‘dialectical critical realism’, ‘EC’ for ‘the theory
of explanatory critiques’, ‘CN’ for ‘critical naturalism’, ‘TR’ for
‘transcendental realism’ and ‘>’ for ‘constellationally contains’ or
‘preservatively sublates’, the place of transcendental realism within
this beautifully articulated system can be written as:
PMR>TDCR>DCR>EC>CN>TR
This system is also articulated in terms of seven dimensions of
being (the ontological-axiological chain) that I normally designate
‘stadia’—that is, its dialectic is a seven-termed one—as follows
(where ‘7A’ [seventh awakening] stands for non-duality, ‘6R’ [sixth
realm] for (re-)enchantment, ‘5A’ [fifth aspect] for reflexivity
understood as spirituality, ‘4D’ [fourth dimension] for human
transformative praxis, ‘3L’ [third level] for totality, ‘2E’ [second
edge] for negativity, ‘1M’ [first moment] for non-identity:
7A>6R>5A>4D>3L>2E>1M 7
Or conversely, and chronologically (omitting the numerals):
MELDARA. 8 This is by no means a purely mnemonic device; thus, as
I have written elsewhere: ‘Moment signifies something finished,
behind us, determinate—a product: transfactual (structural) causality,
pertaining to NON-IDENTITY, first is for founding. Edge speaks of the
point of transition or becoming, the exercise of causal powers in
rhythmic (processual) causality, pertaining to NEGATIVITY’, 9 and so on
for the remainder of the series, which need not detain us here. 10